Modern Wisdom - #645 - Emily Morse - Why Is Everyone Having Such Bad Sex?

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

Emily Morse is a sexologist, author, and host of the podcast “Sex with Emily”. In a sex-positive world, bedroom activities are still considered a taboo subject. And intimacy isn't at the forefront of everyone's minds right now, but having a good love life is important for your physical and psychological health, so I guess we need to hear from an expert. Expect to learn why people are having less sex than previous generations, why we feel shame when talking about sex and how to get over it, what you can do to stop things getting repetitive in the bedroom, the 5 pillars that makes up Emily’s Sex IQ, the most common challenges people are facing when it comes to talking about intimacy with their partner, the 3 T’s of communication for progressing your love life and much more... Sponsors: Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount on House Of Macadamias’ nuts at https://houseofmacadamias.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Check out Emily's website - https://sexwithemily.com/ Buy Smart Sex - https://amzn.to/42O94vu Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Emily Morse. She's a sexologist, author and host of the podcast Sex with Emily. In a sex-positive world, bedroom activities are still considered a taboo subject, and intimacy isn't exactly at the forefront of everyone's minds right now, but having a good love life is important for your physical and psychological health, so I guess we need to hear from an expert. Expect to learn why people are having less sex than previous generations, why we feel shame when talking about sex and how to get over it, what you can do to stop things getting repetitive in the bedroom, the five pillars that make up Emily's sex IQ, the most common

challenges people are facing when it comes to talking about intimacy with their partner, the three teas of communication for progressing your love life, and much more. In other news, this episode is brought to you by AG1. AG1 is a daily foundational nutrition supplement that supports whole body health through a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food source nutrients. AG1 delivers comprehensive support for the gut, brain, and immune system. Since 2010, they've improved the formula 52 times in the pursuit of making the best foundational nutrition supplement possible through high quality ingredients and rigorous standards. With just one scoop, you get the nutrients and gut health support that helps

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Netflix library, which basically 10X is the size of your Netflix for like £1.58 or $1.75 per month. Also, there is a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it. And if you do not like it, they'll give you your money back. Head to surfshark.deals slash modern wisdom to get an exclusive discount plus 3 months free and that 30-day money back guarantee that's surfshark.deals slash modern wisdom. And in final news, this episode is brought to you by House of Macadamias. House of Macadamias Macadamia nuts are phenomenal. Their ready salted flavor are by far my favorite.

They're absolutely amazing. They took three years of taste testing to get their salty, sweet and spicy versions right. And it's not surprising. Tim Ferriss, Jorugan, Brett Weinstein, all endorse house of macadamias as well because they're incredibly tasty and have some of the best nutrient profiles of any nuts.

They've got more heart healthy, monoinsaturated fats that the only nut rich in Omega-7 fatty acids, they're good for glucose metabolism and reducing information, but most of all they just taste great, and you should go and try them too. Head to houseofmacadamias.com slash modern wisdom to get a free box with your first purchase, plus 20% off your whole order with the code MW20. That's houseofmacadamies.com slash modern wisdom and MW20. A checkout. But now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Emily Morse. How have you looked at how much sex people are having in the modern world? Are we having more or less sex than previous generations?

Apparently, we're having less sex than previous generations. Media can't get enough of these studies that they're doing that people are not having sex. The young people aren't having sex. And it turns out people in relationships are having the same minus sex that they've always had, but younger generations are not doing it. Interesting.

I mean, that's one of the first things that I learned when starting to look at this, which is almost all sex. It's something like 95% of sexual activity within any given year occurs only within relationships. So people think about the single turns that are spraying it all over the place, and it's not. It's the people that are in relationships that have almost all of the sex. It's true.

That's been that way for a long time. It's just that, yeah, like you said, but people aren't just out there dating as much, or they're not having sex as much, and they're just more, you know, finding satisfaction elsewhere and not prioritizing it, which is really interesting. Well, it's less of a sex problem than it is a singleton problem in that case. What about, okay, what have you looked at to do with the relationship between having sex and people's happiness? Do people that have regular access to physical touch? Do they live longer or are they happy?

Yes, all the things. Everyone who has more touch, more sex, more connection, are definitely happier in life. They report having more pleasure and more life satisfaction. They live longer. pleasure and more life satisfaction. They live longer. You know, touch is a requirement. It really is. There's something called skin hunger. And that's a real condition that we need physical touch.

We require it. And as animals, like we just, we want to cuddle, we want to touch. And I think a lot of times we talk about sex. But something that I always talk about is like, sex is just part of it. I think a lot of times we talk about sex, but something that I always talk about is like sex is just part of it I think a lot of times think we think we're craving sex and how we define sex is like Penetration, but really we're craving intimacy and that could be holding hands It could be kissing cuddling massage, you know

But it's phonymd you just if you are feeling lonely and we know we also have a loneliness epidemic and a sex epidemic apparently But just getting a massage and finding y'all cuddling up holding a puppy, we require that as humans to thrive. And it boosts our serotonin, our moods, everything. I remember reading during the pandemic about women who were touch starved or touch isolated, trying to find a way to not risk COVID, but to also be able to get a hug off of a friend or off a stranger. And there were these support groups for women on the internet who hadn't touched under the person for ages. And it was affecting the mental health.

Yeah. No, I'm sure I didn't hear about that one, but I did have a massage therapist call into my show during the pandemic saying there was all these women coming to him and they were like, you know, asking for like a little something extra, a really happy, happy ending. Wow. Yeah. What a time to be alive. These are the real costs of the pandemic.

I don't know about GDP and national debt. I want to know about the mass uses that have to do happy endings. That's what we're about. It wasn't complaining, but. Well, yeah, maybe. One of the other thing, I'm British, right? So, our sensibilities when it comes to opening up and talking about sex are basically non-existent. We're way to stiff up a lip and stoic for that to be the case. What's happened in your experience over the last, but since you began researching this around the conversation of talking about sex, are people more open or less open, are we having a resurgence of

new Puritans at the moment? You know, it's a great question because when I started this almost 20 years ago, there really wasn't anybody talking about sex. You could really just point to Dr. Ruth. And, you know, she was in her 90s now and she started talking about sex probably in the 80s. And there was a lot of resources. People weren't talking about online.

Now, since then, there's definitely more people. There's more information available online. There's more people, podcasts, there's talking about it. It's definitely the first podcast we're talking about. However, so there's two people, podcasters talking about it, it's definitely the first podcasters talking about it. However, so there's two things happening. Yes, we're more open and we're comfortable talking about sex and you can buy a vibrator at, you know, Walmart. And, and, and, you know, we see more nudity on television and we're just more open, right? Sexually, there's more TV shows with the word sex entitled Netflix, which wasn't even a thing five years ago. However, what hasn't changed at all is that we still live

in a very pure, tanical society where we are just truly not comfortable getting into the specifics around sex. I mean, if you look at what's happening in like an America with like Roe v Wade, so now we're like, and then we're also, we're limiting sex education. Only 17 states require sex ed to be medically accurate in America, but yet we're rolling back rights too. So it's just, it's really pretty backwards that people just don't have the information, but yet there's a proliferation of porn. So now we have all this pornography without sex education.

And that's just lethal, to be honest, because porn is not real. It's fiction. Someone wrote a script and it's not how you accurately have sex. So there's a crisis in that sense that, well, sex is ubiquitous on the internet and you can see it on your phone when you're like eight years old kids are seeing porn, but yet they're going on the world having sex and there's not information. So it's not. So in a way, there's, they were in some pretty much the same place where people still don't

have information about pleasure, which is what I talk about a lot. And I got to be honest that even when I was in my publisher's probably getting killed me, and I, I, but this is what it made me think of that. So I have a major publisher in my books coming out, smart sex. I don't know how to say this, but they really came at me in like December and were like, So I have a major publisher in my books coming out, Smart Sex. I don't know how to say this, but they really came at me in December. And we're like, we can't have sex in the title because it's going to get buried in the algorithms. And I was like, I've been doing my show for 20 years to make sex more accessible. I have to put sex in the title.

It's like, I'm sex with Emily. So this is what we're up against, right? It's still, if we live in a world we are not as safe and comfortable talking about sex. Right, so if it's not the sensibility that we have and the concern that everyone has about opening up about sex, it's getting keywords hidden on Google search algorithm.

Okay, what is it? Have you ever looked at why humans are nervous about talking about sex? Just generally, why is that adaptive? Why would that be an evolutionarily adaptive reason? Well, because evolutionary speaking, I would say that there was a time when we weren't, both if we go back about 500,000 years, we look at religions impact on sexuality. And we look at the change in women's roles and men's roles and how sex sort of became more about procreation. And women became the property of men. And we started to police sexuality.

And so we didn't have a lot of, again, still an information about it. And so I think if we look at modern day, why we're not, you know, evolutionary speaking, I think there's been a lot of change in it. But even if you go back to Adam and Eve, which some people say that story is an even real, Eve was blamed and shamed for her body

and what she did to Adam making him take a bite of the apple. So since the beginning of the time, I would say there's been some shame around our genitals, but if we fast forward to modern day, I can tell you that we were even talking about sex in America until about 50 years ago, right, till the Kinsey Institute started doing research around it in the late 50s, but so it's still a pretty new field. And even that, they still, I mean, even just yesterday, I have a friend who works at Kinsey

Institute so they were being defunded. So anyway, there's that. There's also just shame. I have to tell you that there is so much shame around our bodies and talking about sex. And I do think it goes back to more conservative environments. We don't have information about it. If you grew up in a household where you were told it was wrong to have sex in marriage or unless you were married and that sex only for procreation, you know, and without, so I think a lot of it is shame and

we haven't normalized it that our parents parents that want to talk to kids kids don't want to hear their parents talk about it and a lot of misinformation just leaves it shrouded in mystery One thing that is interesting to add into that is that I'm not convinced that the modern world is as sex negative. You know, we've got kids that are now 16 years old who were born in what? 2007. 2007 wasn't pitch burn in flag carrying, you know, like keep your, I mean, when this game

marriage legalized, not long, not too long after that. Right. So it seems like a relatively sex positive world yet young people still have a lot of reticence about talking about their sex. So, you know, there may be some of the older people, the older generation, perhaps my parents' generation, your parents' generation, who were influenced

by that conservative thinking. I'm not sure, I wonder whether there's just something more embedded. I wonder whether it's something about, I don't know, the same way that you don't talk to your friends all the time about your bowel movements or about your athlete's foot or about like your chronic flatulence or something. I wonder whether there's just something kind of sacred about, or not even sacred, shameful, inherently shameful. And I guess what you're trying to do,

opening up the conversation about sex, normalizing it, making it the sort of thing that people don't need to blush and look at the floor when they discuss. Well, you know, and I think you're right, I think there is some shame out. Like I don't want it, there's just some things that we don't want to talk about. But if I didn't have an example of in the Dutch countries,

like in the Netherlands, it's the only place that I know of and that we've studied where they actually talk about, they start teaching sex education when kids are very, very young, like even when they're preverbal. Meaning they name the body parts. They'll say that's your toes and your knees and your thighs and your vagina, your vulva, your penis. Whereas in America, we might skip right over

and be like, your knees, your thighs, your stomach or your private parts. So at a young age, they start to normalize that. They name the parts. They talk about consent when it comes to touching like at a young age two, that like say this is your body and you have the right to have people touch it or not. And in their sex education, which they have every single year, as kids get older,

like literally from kindergarten to graduation, they talk about, they have sex education, but we're in America, it's fear, it's basically don't get pregnant, don't get an STI, basically don't have sex. It's all very mechanical and fear based in these Dutch countries, they talk about pleasure and they talk about orgasm and they talk about yeah, like consent and asking for what you want.

And I think that this lack of information here where we don't really talk about the female orgasm or there's like an orgasm gap or there's all these missing things that it just, there's just a lot of missing information here where we don't talk about how it can be pleasurable and great. But again, when you look at these countries, they show that the pregnancy rate is lower,

the parents, the kids talk to their parents about sex, the parents will say, well, if you had sex, I hope it was pleasurable. I hope you had an orgasm. Like that might seem so cringy to everybody who's listening to this, but that's just because the way we were socialized. How much better is it to be in a free open world? Like your parents are like, you're playing on a soccer

league, like, how was your match? Did you win? Did you play it? How was your sex? Did you have pleasure? Cool. Did you use protection? Amazing. What's for dinner? Like, why does it have to be so shameful?

Right because the the the the problem with that is that we walk around having pain, faking orgasms Like I did for many many years But 80% of women of pain during sex at some point in their life some women always have pain But they never talk about it. We're like well, like us. We got a period and give birth and have pain during sex at some point in their life. Some women always have pain, but they never talk about it. We're like, well, like us, we got to have periods and get birth and have pain during sex. We don't, there's an orgasm gap or men have orgasms in 99% of sexual situations and women do not only 20% of women have sex during penetrative sex. We, you know, women and men take between like six and eight women So in so orgasm women take between 20 40 minutes

So like there's all these ways that if sex is really supposed to be this pleasurable collaborative effort where we're all having a good fucking time Then it'd be so great to have information about it so we could actually do it in a way that feels good So this is where the disconnect is like yes He'll are having sex or they're apparently not having sex But even when they are having sex, I think the quality of sex hasn't changed. And that is my mission, to be honest, my mission, is to get people to better sex.

And to, and everyone gets to decide what that looks like. And I don't even think that we know what that looks like. And so that's what my mission is all about, and what my book is about, that I just like literally, it was like, I want people to know what's on the menu and what sex even can look like. And here's all the tears of foundation for knowing if you're sexually healthy and what you need to know.

And then you get to decide like, here's everything. Take what you like, leave the rest. But I think right now, since there's so much disparate information, we're just walking around like, why sex are great at the beginning of the relationship, but it's not great six months in or year in and develop. Like no, let's just fucking deal with it and have information and have a lot more pleasure

in our lives, that's what I'm all about. It is strange that we exist in a world that's got more information than ever before. We've managed to eradicate diseases, we've mastered the climate, we can fly across countries, we can do all sorts of things, communicate, and yet the quality of sex by the doctor, as she said, doesn't seem to have improved. The quality of our lives have improved by pretty much every other objective metric that

you care to care about. I wonder where the part of it is this sort of current, it is like a pure, botanical world where people have focused so much just on work and pleasure or enjoyment feels lazy, it feels like unnecessarily luxurious. You probably don't have time for it. It's at the bottom of your list of priorities.

Exactly, that's exactly it. And that's what I mean, I, this, this is my work is basically about pleasure, getting people to prioritize pleasure and not conditions on pleasure. Like it's only once I work out, can I have dessert or once I check everything off my list, can I go do something that's fun for me.

And my thesis hypothesis that really that sex that sex well that pleasure is productive that the more pleasure you have the more pleasure you work into your life your schedule your planning you know as you're planning your workout so your times with friends are all the other things you're prioritizing, put pleasure on the map, put pleasure on your calendar, like whatever that is, and I actually have in my book a pleasure percentage that I help people figure out like their pleasure formula of how many,

if you look it out, there's like a formula of how many minutes in the day, how many minutes in the week, and you divide it up, and you figure out like all the formula literally for how you can insert pleasure into your life, and like look ahead and be like these are the things that make me feel good because otherwise they just don't happen to your point. You're just like, I don't deserve it.

I didn't do enough. And the next thing, you know, like weeks go by, months go by, you're like, when was last time I did something that was just fun for me? What is fun? Like, what is pleasure really? Yeah, we work so much. We all work so hard to meet, we're on our phones, we're on our lap, we're always available.

But we're not scheduling in, we're not scheduling that pleasure time. Okay, you said before something that's an interesting question, which is why is sex so exciting at the beginning of a relationship and why does it wane over time? What have you come to believe about that? Well, this is the, there are biology speaking, there's something called the honeymoon phase,

which is a real could cycle a biological condition less anywhere from six months to two years. And what they show is that, you know, when something's new and exciting and we, you know, the novelty of being someone new, we actually have looked at the brain wave patterns of people falling in love or in lust. And it's, it's, it's, it looks like the people on cocaine. Like if you look at people falling in love and lust, it's the same exact thing. You've got the dopamine

the serotonin, it's the most delicious cocktail of feel good hormones flying around. And we feel amazing. But just like everything that feels great, it also has to come down. Right? It comes up. It comes down. And so then it stagnates. And then we're like, okay, well, I'm not riding the waves of the fumes of the newness and excitement. What do we do about it? How do we keep it going? And what we do crave after this period is, you know, if we start the sex start a flat line is we do crave like novelty and newness and variety.

And so, you know, but that's why that's why it happens and then that's when people usually come to find me when I'm like, okay Now what do we do and since we don't have a lot of information about sex and we're not comfortable talking about sex And we compartmentalize sex we really do we kind of put it over there. We're like When let's close my eyes get naked and hope for the best. Hope it's good. And then when it's not good, if you don't know what the fuck to do. So why help people kind of figure out what they can do to make it keep it hot, keep it interesting, keep it fresh and keep it going?

Pivoting from that, I think it's the passionate to the companion it. Those are the two systems in eavescipes speak. And you have the one that is all encompassing, you're concerned about why they've waited so long to text you back, you can't wait to see them again. It ruins your day because you can't not think about them. And then things do pivot,

but they pivot for an adaptive reason, right? That you go from mate retention to family building. You're no longer focused as much on trying to be obsessive to make sure that they're invested in you. You're both invested in each other. And now we need to move forward. But I imagine that given that pleasure is something that needs to be prioritized, given that it's something that determines our quality of life, it makes us live longer, et cetera,

et cetera. These two things almost kind of work against each other. So one of the most common dynamics I think that people will see, especially those that are in relationships, are sex becoming routineized, the type of sex that you have, when you have it, where you have it, the way you have it, how long it lasts, the things you do, what are your pieces of advice for people who feel like sex is the same as a trip to McDonald's now? I know my order, I know what to expect, I know how long the weight's going to be, and I know what I'm gonna feel like after I finished.

What should you do? Well, I think the first thing to do is to, if you're in a relationship, is to start to talk to your partner about sex. Really, my whole thing is communication is a lubrication. And the more that we talk about sex the better sex we're going to have so really it's finding out what What kind of sex do we like having what's interesting to us like let's do a little bit of

Research a little bit of digging a little bit of reflective, you know talking about what has worked in our relationship and what hasn't so You can talk about for example okay, so here's the thing. I'm gonna go out and lim say the majority of people in long-term relationships haven't really talked about their sex life in a way that is useful in a way that can help them answer this question of what can we do to keep it hot and interesting. And so, you know, I actually, in this book,

Spark Sacks, I write about these five pillars, which are sort of the foundation and the tools of the way that people can check in with themselves and understand their own sexuality. Because when I started writing this book, I was like, okay, I've got 20 years of knowledge. Here's all my best tips and tricks. And then I thought, like, you know,

everybody wants a quick fix when it comes to sex, like, what's the toy? What's the loo? What's the sex position? And I give that, like, I give that in droves and smart sex. I literally put everything in there, but then I realized that people really need an organizing principle around sex. I want people to understand there are five pillars and that's going to help them understand who they are as a sexual being. They don't see the relationship between their sexual being, their emotional being, their mental well being, their physical well being, their spirituality, their self confidence, self acceptance, all the things. So there's all these factors that come into play. So when I tell

couples to talk about their sex life, there's a lot of different things going on. There's all the tips and tricks, like try this position, try this toy, but then there's what's going on with the individual with you. And I really feel like I would I sit out with people, what I help people that was understand who they are sexually, so then they can relate to a partner. And they could figure out these like five pillars together. understand who they are sexually so then they can relate to a partner and they could figure out these like five pillars together. For example, like what like

the first one is is embodiment, right? How in our body are we during sex? Do I know what makes me feel when I'm having sex with someone am I present and my feeling my partner's body in my hands? Do I you know feel my feet on the ground like in any moment how embodied are you? Is this a conversation when it comes to embodiment and these five pillars? Is this something that someone's supposed to broach with a partner?

Is it best to do it with a partner? Is it best to journal it? Is this supposed to be part of my morning meditation practice? What am I doing? I love this, that you're asking this. So I think so, I mean, because I'm getting into the pillars out, but really for couples, this is just, well, first of all, there's a sex-like QQA

is if you can take on my website. It's like a figure out where you're at and where to start, but I do this. If I'm not the mood for sex or I don't want something, I write down the five areas and I think about, and I journal at the top of my notes, my phone, and I go around and I'm like, have I paid attention to all of these pillars?

Do I, how's my health and wellness? Have I been working out? What's my blood flow like? Have I been communicating with my partner? That's another one of the pillars is collaboration. Have I talked to you about what my turn-ons are, what makes me feel good in the bedroom, what doesn't? Maybe I have some resentment too. So you're just a way of kind of analyzing where you're at, say, your sexual health, and then, you know then figuring out, then talking apart about it. So really it's just, yeah, you could do this on your own, you could read this with your partner,

you could figure out like, what, so the first thing is I have, and if you want to start more like at a base level, like if you're in a relationship with someone and you've never talked about your sex life, a great place to start, like if we're just talking quickly, like before we get into the psychological and emotional part of it, and you you're like right now I want to know

what's going on. Talk about the three most memorable times you've had sex with each other not with somebody else but be like what's our most memorable times you have sex and then you look at that and you think okay what is what what was happening in those moments what Why was it so great? Was there a new sex move? Was there a lot of foreplay? Was there a lot of build up? Had we not seen each other in a while?

Was there a lot of oral sex? Did someone almost walk in the room and we thought we almost got caught? What elements were happening? So we can reverse engineer what great sex feels like? When did we feel the most connected what was happening? So that's a great place to start I have a yes-no Maybe list on my site that lists all of like the 80 sex acts out there that couples can kind of take a little quiz together

And figuring this is more like what what are we into are we into kissing spanking dirty? Talk like what would be great? But at the end of the day Chris at the end of the day We have to understand when do I get turned on? When do I get aroused? What time a month? What time of day? What conditions need to be present for my arousal?

Do I need to have it? Like, if it's freezing in my house and it's a mess, I am shut down. I have no blood flow. I'm freezing. I'm shivering. I can't relax because the dishes are in the sink. If I'm resentful with my partner because he hasn't like, he didn't come home when he said I was going to or we got in a fight last week, like there's no way that I'm in the

mood for sex. If I'm in pain, if I'm having my period, if I'm right. So there's just, and we don't, we just think it's a magical switch that's going to flip on at any moment because it did early on in the relationship. So through this book, through these pillars, you can learn, anytime it's kind of like your health, if you're not feeling in shape, you don't just go to the gym. If you let's say you want to get in shape, right, you're up and just go to the gym. You're going to, like if you want to be healthy, right, you're going to go to the gym,

you're going to change your diet, you're going to get your blood work done, maybe you're going to amp your connections in your community and try to have your mental health. So the sex is the same way, but since we compartmentalize it, we're disconnected from it. I want you to realize that there's a holistic approach to understanding your overall wellness, and that includes your sexual health. Cock blocked by the dishwasher. What a scenario to make yourself into. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, not being intentional about sex is something that's super common. It's tied into by this shame.

It's tied into by the fact that it's more difficult to speak to other people about. You know, you're not going to, I applaud you and I thoroughly hope that people can have a more organic relationship with talking about sex, but I don't see a world in which I want to open up to my mom about whatever's going on in my sex life. So, you know, given the fact that that's the case, it is one of the more challenging things for you to do. Talking about stuff that gets in the way,

what are the most common emotions that get in the way or stop people from having pleasure? common emotions that get in the way or stop people from having pleasure? The most common things that get in the way of pleasure. So, I call these the pleasure thieves and the first one is stress, anxiety, stress, worry. If we are at a place where we are worried all the time and anxious and when our heads and what we're worried about money our jobs our lives we we are Not going to be able to prioritize our pleasure and make as much time for it We're going to be in our heads, which means we're not in our bodies So that's that's just a huge factor it again

I think that people don't often see that connection between their lifestyle and their mental health and their sexuality. There's also shame as we covered that if we have shame around our bodies, around our sexuality, around how we show up, thinking that we shouldn't be having sex, it's going to be really hard to have connected, intentional sex. It really is. And then trauma, if we have on-heeled trauma, any kind of trauma, big T-trauma, little T-trauma that our body is in fight or flight, and we are disassociated during sex, also going to make it difficult for having sex. Those are some of the things. All of these are well, no, trauma to me feels like something,

especially big T-traumatic, the sort of thing that it's not just enough to speak to your partner about, right? You probably need to be going down. I don't need to be going down. I need to be going down. I do prefer. Listen, we all need therapy.

We all need to prefer. I believe that we all could use therapy at some point in our life. I mean, it's just like getting a second opinion in your life. We do it in our business. We get a business coach or we get a car breaks down, we go to the mechanic. Like if our relationship or our mental health,

it just, yeah, I'm just a huge fan of therapy. I really can't believe it's saying that people still don't realize that they could use. And it doesn't have to be like a traditional once a week therapist. People can find other ways to kind of do that internal work. I just think it's so important. I mean, another thing that's really keeping us from pleasure is medications.

I don't think that we realize that antidepressants, birth control pills, some blood pressure medications will directly impact our libido, our blood flow, our ability to get a rouse turned on, erect, lubricated, wet. And so again, the disconnect with lack of information, I mean, no one's reading the side effects on the side of a pill bottle, but they probably should, or maybe they heard it, and they're like, oh, but it doesn't really affect me.

It absolutely does. And these are also things we have to pay attention to, so you can talk to your doctor about it, your medical doctor, and you can say, I'm not okay with these side effects. Are there other things that I can do? These SSRIs are causing me to be basically impotent. Have you had Dr. Sarah Hill on your show? No. Lady, this is your brain on birth control?

No, but I've had a few other birth control people on, but no, I haven't, but I'll write it down. It'll be similar stuff to what you've seen, but she's phenomenal and she looks at it through an evolutionary lens, which is great. And she's got some ovulatory window shift stuff in there, which is interesting too. But they did a study with natural cycles, the thermometer under the tongue people. So they actually worked with the company to have an in-app study that was done.

All of the women who are on the natural cycles app are currently off birth control, because why the fuck would you be tracking a cycle if you're on-birth control? They surveyed a bunch of the users and asked whether they met their partner when they were on-birth control or when they were off-birth control. They then asked them to rate their current level of sexual satisfaction with their partner, and I think in the app there is a journal entry that asks you to put your current level of a rousal or like sexual desire or something like that. They were then able to compare the level of sexual satisfaction from women that had met their partners when they were on and are now off or met their partners when they were off and are now still off. Women who met their partners when they were on both control and are now off had a lower level

of sexual satisfaction with their partner but both groups had the lower level of sexual satisfaction with their partner, but both groups had the same level of sexual desire and arousal. So no difference in terms of sex drive, but marked difference in terms of how much they were attracted to their partner. And you go, okay, has anybody ever told any girl ever when they go to go and get birth control at age 16 or something, beware that the partner that you end up with, if you then decide to get off birth control, maybe you're married, maybe you've been together for four or five years and you've never released yourself from this hormone induced stupid and you go, holy fuck, I'm in a relationship with somebody that I'm not that sexually compatible with when I don't have a ton of progesterone flowing through me.

It's really, really terrifying and fascinating. Yeah, no, I actually talk about the study in the book, and I didn't know, I think it was, I wonder if it was the same study with Sarah Hill. I don't know that that's the name of it, but this is a known study that's been around that we do talk about a lot, that it's just, there are so many factors that when women take

a birth control pill at 16, 17, they don't realize that it's going to impact their, that they're more at risk for depression, for anxiety, for, yeah, reduce libido, for concentration problems, diet, for their, for their, you know, just everything. I do- Penetrate levels like game, everything.

I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, I took the pill for a year, I don't remember. And it was always like a non-pill, like, back and now there's more information. This is why I'm so thrilled. There's so many people talking about this. But I remember going to the doctor, I was on it for like, you know, 10 years

and they'd be like, are you on any medication? And they'd be like, God, just the pill. Like, it was never, no one ever talked about side effects. Ever, it was just, that's what you do. You don't talk. I mean, it's just crazy to think now with all the information we have, how harmful it is. Well, that's one of the pieces of advice that I definitely give to people, which is if you and your partner are thinking about getting married and your misses has been on birth control for the entirety of your relationship, you really, really need to get her to come off this before you commit

to buying the house, getting the dog, doing the marriage, starting the family. Because, and it's brutal to say, like, you know, we are inexorably linked to our psychology and our biology work in tandem with each other. And you just don't know how different the texture of your partner's mind could be if she comes off birth control. And you go, fuck like this doesn't work. And it's a non-zero number if it's like a not an insignificant number of people to whom this happens. So yeah, I think that's important. So going back to the communication thing,

someone's listening to this and they go, that's me and my Mrs. We don't talk about sex as openly as we should do. This sex IQ thing sounds like I've never even considered it. What is the best process for beginning a conversation, opening up this world of talking about sex with your partner? The best thing to do is to find a space and time to talk about it. I talk about the three T's of communication. I have a communication guide on my site.

It's like Timington and Turf. I mean, this is a great tool for any kind of sexual conversation that you wanna have, but you wanna make sure that you are, first off, that you're entering any of these conversations from a place of curiosity and compassion and Being intentional that this conversation is going to be about our collaboration and about us coming together In a place where we want to learn more about each other rather than defensive like why don't you ever hit?

Why don't you ever go down on me? Why are you initiating sex? There's so much anger and hostility around sex. So timing tone and turf is pick a time when you guys are hanging out and it's chill. It's not when you are, you know, not in a good chill space. It's like now when you've been like fighting or whatever. It's like date night and the tone is like. You're saying that immediately after a rampant argument saying, why do you never go down on me? Isn't going to be really well. You're just like, that's terrible. It does never receive well, but people, but can they throw it in? People throw it in man. They throw it in at the time that you should.

And then the turf, that's the most important thing to remember is it's outside the bedroom. People do not have these kind of conversations when you are in the bedroom, when you are in a heightened state of a rouse or already, or you're upset about something, I would just love everybody to keep their bedrooms for sleeping and for sex. What about tone? The tone is light and curious and it's open and it's it's collaborative. And I give a lot of tools in the book for actually, I mean, I give scripts upon scripts

because what I know after 20 years that people were like, I still don't know how to do it. Like even though I talk about timing tone and turf, like it's a light, it's open. You're not defensive. You're learning how to be, you know, I have some active listening tools for people to learn to how to actually reflect and listen. A lot of us, we just don't listen, we talk, and we don't actually hear what our partner's saying.

So there's methods to repeating back to what your partner says to make sure that you are hearing each other. And the other thing to remember is that it's not a one-time conversation. My vision is for couples to have this conversation all the time. I mean, you don't just... Thanksgiving. Yeah. It doesn't have to be your parents around the table, but when you're like, you know, yeah, wherever, because like you talk about date and night, right? Like, what are we going to do tonight? Where are we going

to go on our vacation? What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what your personal goals are your work goals? I know my partner I talk a lot about like, what are goals are professionally and personally and the health goals and all those things. But like, we talk about our sex life. Like, we're like, okay, we're going away. What, what toys should we bring? What should we do? What's our like thing that we're into this week, this month? Should we, like, I know when there's times that I'm turned on or not or he's like, should we have sex? We literally talk about it. And it's so hot because it's not confused.

There's no confusion around my sexuality. There's no like, resentments are our beginning of sex. We're not going to sex because we're like, just like are we ordering in? Are we cooking dinner? Are we having sex? Are we not? Like, and then we clear all the confusion and upset stuff around sex, the weirdness and the thing

that we just know, like when we wanna do it, it's kinda like going to the gym. You know, like for your workouts, you optimize it like a great hack is to put your shoes out the night before. Sign up for your class. Have a trainer. Keep yourself accountable.

Is that what you're saying? You leave cues around the house so the butt plug is next to the Nutri-Bullet just in case you want to. Exactly. Exactly. And it's always hard. My assistant charges my sex toys. I'm not kidding you.

They're always ready to go. Why? I hope that you pay your assistant unbelievably well. They're already clean. She just turns them. Yeah, we sure organize it. My whole life. She charges my laptop.

She charges my iPad. She, oh yeah, everyone here. We've got a dock. We've got everything. We've got the air pods. We've got the butt plug. We've got a dock, we've got everything. We've got the AirPods, we've got the butt plug, we've got everything in a nice clean line. Yeah.

Get tactical for a second. What is some of the favorite scripts that you have for how somebody should broach discussion about sex with their partner? Um, honestly, one of my favorite ways to do it is once we, because that time in tone and turf conversation could just be, hey, I realize we've never talked about our sex life.

I was listening to this great podcast and they said that couples who talk about sex actually have better sex. So, because literally, you're like, if I, you have to remember this, when you approach your partner, if you've never talked about sex, there's a pretty good chance they're going to go into fight or flight.

They're going to be like, why are you bringing this up to me? What am I doing wrong? Oh my God, my penis really is as small as I thought or not as hard or not. Oh, you don't like my breasts. There's just a million things we go to this place, not like, oh great. You want to talk about our sex life? That is I've been waiting for that too, babe. No, it's usually

met with like animosity and fear. So, just why the tone is so important and the timing and just saying, listen, I realize that this is something that, you know, we haven't talked about, but I want to have a growth mindset around our sex life and I hope that you do too. I hope that this can be a place where we can grow and learn together and evolve. Would you be down for that? So that's just the general conversation. But let's say there's something that you really want to, you want to give feedback too. You want to give some constructive feedback.

I love the compliment sandwich, the sexual compliment compliment sandwich is when you start with a compliment, you start with something that you really love about the sex life. Like, God, last night was so hot. I love when you, you know, maybe, maybe my desire is to kiss more, right? Do you know that in long-term relationships, kissing is one of the first things that goes. We stop kissing, we stop making out. Remember, like early on, like, give us long makeup sessions and sex that's a lot longer. Well, maybe I've learned that kissing is a big part of my arousal process. Maybe I've learned that kissing is a big part of my arousal process. So I would say, you know, I really love the sex we're having. It was so hot last time.

I loved the way you slowly addressed me and it was so, the orgasms and it was that butt plug. You really like use that really well last night, babe. But I realize, and this is when you get to the constructive part, is that, you know, I really miss our kissing. And for me, I know we kiss a little bit at the beginning, but I think it would be so hard if we could kind of bring back in some of those make-out sessions.

And then you end it with why would be great for both of you? Because I think the more we kiss, the more connected we're going to feel. And I know I'll be way more turned on and down from more sex. So you just sort of, yeah. Well, one of the things, I guess, almost everybody has performance anxiety in one regard or another, right? Guys for how long they can last and girls for whether or not they're doing it right,

and I think that trying to work out a way to dampen the landing, to just make it a little bit more gentle, is probably pretty important because you don't want to trigger a response in somebody that worsens the situation. I think that that's one of the reasons that people fear bringing this up is, well, how's my partner going to respond?

Exactly. I'm trying to improve our sex, but what if I make it worse? What if I make them more self-conscious? Yeah. Well, I think that if you're in a relationship where you can be super vulnerable about your insecurities and your challenges. And, you know, I hope, I mean, my hope is everyone's in a relationship where they can,

they're able to talk about other areas like, oh, my boss at work didn't treat me so well today or I'm feeling, I didn't get that raise or I didn't get that thing in your vulnerable. But sex is the same way. So if you have, and hopefully your partner is coming it from like a loving place, like if you're giving feedback and you're trying to grow into the sex life and try to evolve it.

So it's interesting and hot for both of you that we can take some of the shame and trust and know that your partner is with you because they love you and they're attracted to you and they find you sexy and hot and that all the things that I want people to take a moment here and really hear what I'm saying that most of the things that you are worried about when it comes to sex, your performance, your penis size, your body shape, the way you're doing, giving, performing oral sex, the way you're breasts, your left boobs, bigger than the right boobs, whatever the things you're worried about have like literally zero to do with any sort of pleasure or satisfaction.

And people will tell you they have the best sex. It was never because of like the shape of the penis that all these things. It's about connection. It's about intimacy. It's about feeling safe. It's about experimenting. It's about really being with someone where you want them to have the most pleasure and they want the same for you. It's a collaboration. It's a beautiful dance. And so if I can leave this planet and let people realize it, like, all of this is okay. You are normal. You're fantasies. You're desires. It's all fine that you have to make peace with yourself and then find a partner that's open to collaborate with you on this and have these conversations. Like, that's the biggest roadblocks is our own

fears around sex and worry. What are you hearing from women about what they wish that their partners would do more or less of in the bedroom? I'm aware that this isn't a one-size-fits-all. I'm aware that every woman's body and fantasies are individual. But are there some common trends that you're hearing from women about things that are commonly do's and don'tsaws and lasses. I would say that across the board, and this is probably nothing new, that women want more, they want sex to be slower.

I would say they go five times slower than you think. Slow everything down, kissing, undressing, making out. If you're going down on your partner, like, don't be like the one like wonder, stay down there a little bit longer. If you heard me earlier, it takes women anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes to orgasm. I think that women want slowness. I think they want intentionality. They want compliments. They want to feel a door. They want to feel worship. They want to feel beautiful. Compliments go a long way. The brain is our largest sex organ.

So, you know, besides our skin, people always get on me for that, but find our skin also is important. You know, so I think that the more that we can connect sexually, I often say for play all day, or for play starts after the last orgasm. So what can you do in the times in between sex, to say connected and hot and keep it sexy, whether it's like sex thing, sending pictures, telling your partner what you want to do next, what you remember about the last time you had sex, keeping sex top of mind, keeping your pilot light lit. Because when you just like, think about it,

I'm always gonna use the analogy of the gym, like you start working out every day, you're feeling great, and then you don't go for a while, you don't go for a month, and it's a lot harder to get back in there. The same thing goes for sex. So I think that we all, not just women, but we want to keep that fire going.

We want to keep it lit. So I think that I just hear that we want more, like we don't want to just be going about our lives, and then there's this expectation we should just want to go and have sex because our partner does. So I think that we have to remember that women are slow cookers typically and men are like frying pans. So if you can just remember that, that we've got more bells and whistles and buttons and things that have to happen for us to be aroused. Again, not one size fit all. There's some women who feel differently, but overall in my 20 years of work, this is what I have found that we need a little bit more,

a little bit more of everything to keep it hot and keep it interesting and collaborative. You mentioned about instigating sex. And I think that initiating sex from all of the, I used to run an event business, so I saw a lot of 18 to 25 year olds that were in and out of relationships, making up and breaking up and stuff like that.

And one of the most common disagreements that was had around sex seemed to be who was initiating it, how it was initiated communication about trying to start it. A lot of the time I think girls not instigating, which can sometimes cause guys to feel not desired. That's kind of a bit of a lame thing for a guy to admit to because you go, well, if I don't feel desired, that what even is that, that's kind of a bit of a feminine trait that undermines my masculine confidence and essence. That makes me less of an alpha or a high value man. What have you come to believe or learn about instigating sex philosophically, tactically, what do you think?

I think that we all need to initiate and instigate sex. I think that it has to be a two-eighth street. I think that there's, I also wanna say that I get why usually in relationship there's one person initiates more than the other. That's just how it is. Usually there's a high desire partner and a low desire partner. And typically those people get together in a relationship. And so one

person's always initiating, but what happens is there's just this, yeah, what happens is that then they get into this challenge where if you're always the one who's driving, if you think it gets exhausting, you're not even sure that your partner wants to. And then they're the one who has the power, the low desire partner has the power and the relationship. They're the one who's deciding is the sex is going to happen, is the sex not going to happen. So that can be exhausting too to be like, well, why am I not desired?

Am I not making an effort? But I think again, like everything, we get into these patterns, right? We get into patterns and we're like, well, the sour sex happens. You make the move and I follow. But the everything we get into these patterns, right? We get into patterns and we're like, well, this is how our sex happens. You make the move and I follow. But the challenge around that it is, yeah, if someone feels rejected, they feel like they're doing all the work,

they don't know that they're desired and it does seem like it's a feminine thing, but we all have feelings and emotions and want to feel loved and adored and safe. That is just blurs across gender lines. So, the thing about initiation is, it's really important to realize that it's a skill set that you might not be as used to it. You might not have done it. And you might not know what it looks like, but it's okay to tell your partner too, because these are the kind of conversations I want people to have. I know that you want me to initiate more. I mean, this could be one of our conversations if you're in a relationship,

and say, you know, I feel like babe, I know I love the sex that we're having, but I feel like I'm always making me effort and I would love to know that you're down with sex too. Doesn't it never just strike you? Don't you ever just want to grab me? Like I grab you. Like I see you, I walk in the door and I want to throw you down in the bed.

But you never do that to me and I would just love if you did. Would you be down with that, right? When you do it in a much more, you wouldn't say never and you would do it if, however, the problem is I might hear that. And to be honest, I will be really, you're vulnerable. I'm not the initiator as much in my entire sexual history. I typically rely on my partner to initiate, but I've had a few partners say to me, you know, again, it's my life work, but still I need to

initiate. So what I've realized is that what I need to do is, it's just down in my habit. I don't get struck by it. Like, my guys do that I'm with, I'm just not that person. I am somebody who is more responsive. I respond to stimuli. So there's like, we get, there's people who are spontaneous arousal and responsive arousal. And again, I hate to do this stuff with gender, but usually men are more spontaneous and women tend to be more responsive.

So I'm responding to my partner's kiss on my neck. He came and he grabbed me, he did something, he sent me a sexy text, I'm responding to that. Okay, so knowing that about myself and my partner's saying he wants me to initiate more, I had to then do a trip of my brain and say, okay. Since I know it's not gonna strike me over that, I have to think about when am I gonna initiate?

And then I'll plan it. I'll be like, okay, well I know that the house has to be clean, the dishes have to be dishwasher, it has to be warm. I have to have worked out, feel good, showered. The bed has to be made, my toys are charged, the loobs out, right? I mean, there's things that need to happen. I don't wanna do it early in the morning

because I don't wanna miss my workout, and I gotta get up and workout. So like, and I things that need to happen. I don't want to do it early in the morning because I don't want to miss my workout. I got to get up and workout. So like, and I think that in saying this, hopefully you are thinking about this too, because what I encourage and what smart sex is all about, is about getting smart about your rousal, your desire so you can hack it and you know, like this is exactly what needs to happen.

So then I have to think about it. So that's one thing. I'm like, these are all the things that happen. And then literally another thing to do is say to your part, if you're still like, but I still can't do it, I still can't initiate another piece of advice I give is ask your partner, I thanks for letting me know way, but I know you want me to initiate more.

What would that look like to you? What would a really hot initiation look like? Because maybe in my heads, in the perfection, some thinking has to be like some elaborate thing where I'm like, naked on the bed, wearing lingerie with rose petals everywhere, right? And maybe I invited another woman over like, I don't know what's hot, it's that your fantasy who knows. But literally, he might be like, I just want you to grab me and just kiss me. I just want you to make out with me. I want you to come behind me and catch and put your arms around me. I want you to send me a naked photo. Like, and then I have some fodder. Then I know, I'm like, no, that's easy, right? And then it's less fearful, it's less scary, it becomes a habit,

you know, and you realize, that's no big deal. It's literally no big deal. I did it and I'm done. Let's move on to some other sex problems. So it's really again, I just try to get into the new once nitty gritty of where people get stuck. And that's what after all these years, I realized this is a really common thing. The initiation thing is huge. And the thing is it might not sound like it's a big deal. But when you realize it, when you think you're the only one pulling the sexual weight in a relationship, it builds into resentments. Then those resentments get out of control.

And there's a lot of happening. So let's just nip it in the bud. The second you start having sex with someone is when you should start talking about all of these things, right? And if you haven't yet, that's cool too, but start to understand who you are as a sexual being. Here's something else that I noticed a lot, especially throughout my 20s, which was conversations that I had with some of my close guy mates about how it was always expected and almost resented, I think, sometimes from the girls if they weren't hot to trot at all times. There is an expectation that the man is the sexual protagonist and that

the woman is the sexual gatekeeper and she's going to respond when you are forthcoming, but that if the reverse happens and you're not immediately just ready to go, or you don't fancy it this evening, or you are whatever, that that's much more accepted, typically, from the woman. You know, you've seen it in a million comedy shows of the guy rolls over and tries to sort of fondle with the girl. And she's like, I'm babe, I'm sleepy and I'm tired tonight. I'm on my period. I'm a blah blah blah. But the reverse, I don't think that we have a particularly good positioning for guys. There's a lot of shame around that, around,

find, do you know what it is? Like, how the hell did it work? Like, I don't want to do this. But if I say no, maybe initiation is rarer. Maybe it makes me feel like less of a man. Maybe I've got concerns about performance. If I do try to have sex during a time when I'm not as in the mood for it. That's something that I think is a lot less talked about.

Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you're bringing that up because I want to normalize it too. Me, my heart, go that to men, men have so much pressure. There's supposed to be turned on ready to go hard, erect, making the moves, and then knowing what exactly what they're doing to turn their partner on and doing all the tips and tricks and Sometimes guys are not in the mood for sex just as much as women aren't and in fact I found again to go back to this that I've hear from just as many women who want more sex in their male partners So I just want to normalize that as well that that's really really really common and so

Yeah, just having compassion for your partner, if they don't want it, again, this is where the normalizing the sex conversation comes in. If, in just understanding that, just because your partner doesn't want to have sex tonight, it can be not tonight, it doesn't mean not ever, it doesn't mean not now, and then putting some words around and say,

baby, you know what, I, tonight, I've had a long day, I'm not feeling it, but I can't wait for this weekend. Like, Saturday night, like, let's do something, let's go out, just the two of us. So then your partner's feeling a little bit less rejected or less, you know, attached to that outcome. I just think that we don't, again, put words around it, and then we get to, we create all these stories, you know, in our head, if we could just kind of say not now. You just to we create all these stories in our head if we could just kind of say not now. You'd just like, here's why.

And let's talk about later, let's do a later. Looking at the reverse of this, what are the most common reasons that you hear from women about why they're not reaching orgasm during sex? Usually, well, during penetration, if we talk about that, penetrative sex typically does not hit women where they need to be hit. There are clitoris as external and internal, but the orgasm starts with the clitoris being,

you know, the most common orgasm is the clitoris orgasm, which is, you know, women being taught usually the majority of orgasms are going to happen from a finger's, a mouth, or toys. That's how the female orgasm happens. So women aren't having orgasms when we, when it's just penetration without any foreplay or orgasm, where, where pleasure or stimulating the clitoris beforehand, because you're just missing all the hot spots. The inner third of the women's vagina is the most sensitive. So those are some of the areas we need to pay attention to.

That's one reason is that we're just, we don't really know how to advocate for that. We don't know how to move during sex. Now penetrative sex could elicit an orgasm if we had more stimulation first. If we used a toy, if we used fingers, then we could have one in conjunction with penetration. So I would say just a really understanding our anatomy and how it all works is one factor. Another thing is, yeah, I guess it's not having. Well, it's kind of the same thing, but not having enough build up, not having enough arousal, not having enough foreplay. And then it could be also medications,

birth control, pill. Never, here's another one. Never having one before with a partner, but just having one during masturbation. So that's like a new, you know, everyone's body is different. So it's not feeling safe with a partner, not feeling that I'm with a partner

that I can actually communicate my needs, and let them know that these are the steps that need to happen. So. So one of the most interesting stats that I'd seen about this was initiated by the declining rates of not having an orgasm compared with how many times you've had sex with that person. So I think it's like 80% of women don't have sex

on the first date, or the first time that they have sex, not in the first date. And then it like relatively reliably declines as you get with somebody more. Now there's something going on, you know, physically you can start to communicate more about compatibility and blah, blah, blah. But really what that suggests is that it's more about comfort, it's more about feeling relaxed, it's more about being comfortable with the partner that you're with. And I saw a really fascinating study.

This is a little while ago now that said, the most common reason for women not reaching climax during sex was recursive self thoughts about not reaching climax during sex. Yes, our heads are absolutely. That makes, yeah, we're in our heads performance anxiety. Am I not going to orgasm or not going to orgasm? I think I'm going to orgasm is not going to happen. So absolutely. And the same thing goes for men and their erections or their orgasm.

The same thing. Am I going to get hard? Am I going to come too quickly? Oh, shit, am I going to come? So yes, when we are in our heads during sex, the blood is leaving our genitals and going to our brains to fuel all of these thoughts that are not serving us and that are not advocating for our pleasure at all. So yeah, the worry that we're not going to get there, which is why I teach a lot of mindfulness absolutely. I'm going to say meditation.

Meditation. I'm telling you, meditate and learn how to learn the skill set of bringing yourself back to the present moment. And I also give a lot of tools and smart sex to how to bring yourself back to the moment during sex so you can be present, so you can breathe, so you can come up with your partner. I mean, there have been times too, or I'm just, you know what, I give these examples too. It's like I just, sex sometimes starts to happen

and you lose your weight, you're like, you're in your head, or you're like, did I turn the oven off? Did I, and it's okay, like here's everything. Sex is that so precious, you're allowed to say, you know what, let's go for a second. I'm gonna run to the bathroom, or I'm gonna do something, or let's breathe for a minute. Sometimes again, it's just going and I'm like, oh, God, I'm not here. I'm not present. I've left the building and they'll just stop and I'll and I advocate for this. I'll do this in my relationship. But I'll say, can we just look at each other

and breathe? Can we just like do five deep breaths for our inhales or our exhales a little bit longer than our inhales and we breathe and we look into each other's eyes And then like we reset and then you start again. So I think again this misinformation that sex is sort of a Sprint and not a marathon and that we all it's very linear We make out we take our clothes off. We have sex is just not the case and it makes it so less fun Emily Moss ladies gentlemen if people want to check out the stuff that you do, where should they go? Everything is sex with Emily, the release of podcast called Sex, Then My Toys To Week, my social media sex with Emily, and my new book is Smart Sex,

you can buy it wherever you buy books, and you can take my sex IQ quiz on my website that will allow you to know where to start on your sexual journey. Emily, I appreciate you. Thank you. Appreciate you too. Thanks for having me. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you